Le docteur et les assassins

"Up the alley and down the street Fallon and Broom sell bones and meat. Fallon's a butcher and Broom's a thief. And Rock's the boy that buys the beef."

At the film's closing, Dr. Thomas Rock(Timothy Dalton)proclaims that he has become a ghost story that frightens children and questioned how it had gotten so far.

A revisionist take on "The Body Snatcher"(..a marvelous film produced by Val Lewton), this film has Dalton portraying a scientist whose skills in anatomy are unsurpassed thanks to his intense study of dead bodies. The law prohibits Rock from using fresh corpses for his research so all he has to use are rotted corpses brought in by grave robbers or criminals hung or animals. He soon enlists the aid of graverobbers Fallon and Broom(Jonathan Pryce and Stephen Rea)to bring him fresh bodies for proper research not knowing they are supplying him with victims they murder. Julian Sands plays Dr. Murray, Rock's assistant, who falls in love with a prostitute named Jennie(Twiggy)and discovers when he goes to see her how Broom and Fallon get their corpses so fresh.

The whole business of delivered bodies provides a special moral dilemma within the story(..which worked quite well in "The Body Snatcher"). Also, the film is quite an indictment on the plight of impoverished "squalor" who lie slowly dying in the streets and alleyways or drift slowly into the abyss of alcoholism. Director Fisher's camera doesn't shy away from the less fortunate as the film seems to show us first-hand their suffering. Dalton's doctor is actually the sympathetic figure in the film in regards to his recognizing the poverty that his colleagues and peers seem to either ignore or just care not to acknowledge. He honestly desires fresh bodies so that he can make a difference in the advancement of the medical profession moving it from the dark Ages to the 19th Century. It's just unfortunate he has to resort to paying graverobbers for specimens. But, the film does recognize(..like in "The Body Snatcher")that Rock knew very well that some of his specimens may've been attained beyond reasonable means. Thomas' sister provides a detrimental problem to the furtherance of his work as she believes his ways are the works of the devil. His wife is also seen as immoral by the sister for she artistically portraits anatomical charts of the human body. Others question Thomas' work as well, specifically Prof. Macklin(Patrick Stewart, whose role and character is underwritten)who wishes for his unusual methods to be grounds for dismissal.

The major moral crisis, though, comes when a deranged Fallon attempts to murder Jennie and is sought after by Dr. Murray where Rock's illegal researching in accepting bodies murdered might soon be discovered. While he only wishes to advance anatomy to save lives, his accepting murdered bodies is indeed considered immoral and unlawful.

While the material of the film might seem familiar, considering it just really feels like a remake of "The Body Snatcher" and is just difficult not to think of the previous film while watching "The Doctor and the Devils", Fisher's marvelous direction makes up for it. Unlike his Hammer years, Fisher doesn't have to hold back. He isn't held down by restrictions and can display the cruel realities of life such as the squalor in the streets as the epidemic it was. The period cinematography feels fresh and completely genuine. It is quite grim and bleak which might put off many with no hope seemingly in sight for many in this film. Fisher keeps the film, for most of the way, on the dreaded streets so that we have a hard time looking away from the truth.

Another version of the Burke & Hare grave robber story. On the surface, this one has quite a few interesting things going for it. For starters, the script was based on one originally written in the 1940s by poet Dylan Thomas. That alone would be worth checking any movie out. Then we have, of all people, Mel Brooks producing it even though it's not a comedy at all. Freddie Francis, famed cinematographer and Hammer director, directs this and gives it that sort of throwback Hammer style. That's the film's strongest asset, by the way. To top it all off, there's a nice cast with Timothy Dalton, Jonathan Pryce, Stephen Rea, Julian Sands, and...um, Twiggy.

So, with all of this, why doesn't the movie work better? Well, the main problem is that it's all so drearily serious to the point of being dull. No excitement, no humor, no suspense. It's definitely not a horror movie, either, in case you were led to believe otherwise. Yes the attention to detail and getting the period right is to be acknowledged but it just reminds me why 'realism' is a double-edged sword in films. This looks realistic to the point of being depressing. I won't say you shouldn't see it because it's intriguing enough to warrant a look. But keep expectations low. If you're really jonesing for a grave robber movie, I would suggest you see the Val Lewton/Robert Wise classic The Body Snatcher starring Boris Karloff instead.

This is the third historical grave-robbing film I've watched after THE BODY SNATCHER (1945) and THE FLESH AND THE FIENDS (1960) – for the record, other cinematic versions of the same events out there are the Tod Slaughter vehicle THE GREED OF WILLIAM HART aka HORROR MANIACS (1948) and BURKE AND HARE (1972). While certainly the least of the three I'm familiar with (due perhaps to its graphic wallowing in the lurid details of the plot), it's pretty good for a product of its time (incidentally, the mid-1980s produced an unexpected but all-too-brief outburst of Gothic Horror which also included Franc Roddam's THE BRIDE [1985] and Ken Russell's Gothic [1986]).

The film was produced by Mel Brooks' company which had also been behind David Lynch's THE ELEPHANT MAN (1980) – which, incidentally, had marked Freddie Francis' own return to being a director of photography! Timothy Dalton as the overzealous doctor has a couple of good scenes in the first half, but he is clearly overshadowed by the more flamboyant turns of Jonathan Pryce and Stephen Rea as the nefarious night diggers. The impressive cast is completed by Twiggy, Sian Phillips, Beryl Reid, Julian Sands and Patrick Stewart; Twiggy (as another whore with a heart of gold) gets to sing as well and, predictably, medical student Sands falls for her charms.

I recall the film playing theatrically but, needless to say, I was too young to catch it back then. It's based on an original, unproduced script by celebrated Welsh playwright Dylan Thomas – adapted here by future Oscar-winning screenwriter Ronald Harwood; curiously, the names of the characters have been changed from the real ones of Knox, Burke and Hare – so had been the case with THE BODY SNATCHER, for that matter, but that one had the excuse of being based on a Robert Louis Stevenson novella! Apart from the starry cast and the film's undeniably evocative look, its main asset is a spare, unusual but effective score provided by longtime Mel Brooks collaborator John Morris.

Nice retelling of the Burke and Hare murder case, which was about 2 low- life lads in the early part of the 19th century selling off bodies to an all too eager Doctor Of Anatomy. They started off grave robbing, but realized they could get more money if they had fresher bodies.... Actually, this seems more of a remake of the excellent "The Flesh And The Fiends " movie from 1960.., They've made the right move by trimming the plot and getting rid of some characters, perhaps they put more of a cliff hanger ending in there, but that's OK. Of course, Timothy Dalton is no Peter Cushing, but we'll let that slide. Actually contains a great cast for it's time.

Inspired by the tale of 18th century British body-snatchers Burke and Hare and their benefactor Dr. Alexander Knox, noted Welsh writer and poet Dylan Thomas wrote the screenplays for The Doctor And The Devils in 1953 shortly before his death. Thirty-two years later Thomas screenplay, with work done to it by Ronald Harwood, was finally produced for the screen. That film stands up, twenty-five years after it was made, as a fine example of period drama brought splendidly to life.

The screenplay is brought to life wonderfully by its cast. Timothy Dalton, himself a Welshman, plays anatomist Dr. Thomas Rock as a man so passionate and desperate to learn more about the human body that he resorts to paying grave-robbers to do so. Dalton brings a strong presence to any scene he's in and his background as a Shakespearean actor is put to good use in scenes such as his opening of the lecture that starts the film or his final piece of narration as the film ends. Believably playing versions of the infamous body-snatchers are Jonathan Pryce and Stephen Rea as Robert Fallon and Timothy Broom, respectively. Both Pryce and Rea share fine chemistry on screen, making them believable as friends turned body-snatchers with Pryce playing up Falon's obsessiveness and Rea Broom's cowardice. The supporting cast is just as splendid as well including Julian Sands as Rock's troubled assistant Doctor Murray, Patrick Stewart as fellow anatomist Professor Macklin, Beryl Reid as one of the body-snatchers victims, Phyllis Logan as Rock's wife, Siân Phillips as Rock's troubled sister and the singer Twiggy as Murray's prostitute girlfriend in a performance that proves every once in a while a singer can actually act.

Period dramas rely heavily on their production values almost as much as their cast to bring them to life believably with this film being no exception. In particular the production design of Robert Laing and Imogen Richardson's costumes come together to bring to life the two clashing worlds of the film: the clean and cultured world of Doctor Rock and the dirty, grimy world of Fallon and Broom. The cinematography of Gerry Turpin and Norman Warwick helps to aid the production design and costumes as well while the editing of Laurence Méry-Clark bring pace, energy. Tension and even horror to those distinctly different worlds. The film is effectively scored by John Morris, including his haunting main title music. All this under the fine direction of Freddie Francis, himself an Oscar winning cinematographer in his own right. When put together these various elements insure that The Doctor And The Devils is well served by its production values.

The true building block of the film is of course its script. Written by Thomas, with work done by Ronald Harwood, the script is an intriguing fictionalization of the tale of 18th century British body-snatchers Burke and Hare and their benefactor Dr. Alexander Knox. Presumably this fictionalization was done by Thomas to allow him to play a bit loose with the facts and explore the themes he wanted to explore. As a consequence, the film is very much centered around Doctor Rock, a cultured man who believes in the advancement of knowledge at all costs as stated eloquently in the character's opening lines. Yet this belief leads him into murky moralistic waters when Fallon and Broom begin bringing him bodies that don't seem quite right and Rock turns a blind eye to the questionable actions of the two men despite the warnings of those around him. The film also looks at Fallon and Broom, men of the grim and filthier side of London who take up body-snatching and indeed murder for a bit of Doctor Rock's money. Or at least until things go wrong and their biggest attributes, Fallon's obsessiveness and Broom's cowardice, threatens to destroy them. It is the scripts exploration of how the cultured, nobly minded but possibly amoral Doctor Rock is, in his own words, brought down into the slime that bred Fallon and Broom that lies at the heart of the film rather then the murders and body-snatching of "the devils" he employed.

The Doctor And The Devils is not only an intriguing fictionalization of the tale of 18th century British body-snatchers Burke and Hare and their benefactor Dr. Alexander Knox but also a fine piece of period drama. This is thanks to the fine performances of its three lead actors, its supporting cast and its fine production values that brings the worlds of 18th century London to life. It is the Dylan Thomas (and Ronald Harwood) script though, with its exploration of the dangers of science without conscience and its consequences, that truly makes the film standout. Fact is stranger then fiction and, though fictionalized, The Doctor And The Devils proves that saying is still true twenty-five years on.